Where did the credit hour come from? What were they intended to do? And what are the consequences of our life with credit hours today? The
Chronicle explores the history and the legacy of our awkward standard unit of learning:
Perhaps the strongest evidence of the credit hour's inadequacy can be found in the policies and choices of colleges themselves. If credit hours truly reflected a standardized unit of learning, they would be transferable across institutions. Nearly 60 percent of students in the United States attend two or more colleges, so the nontransfer of credits has huge implications. But colleges routinely reject credits earned at other colleges, underscoring their belief that credit hours are not a reliable measure of how much students have learned. If higher education doesn't trust its own credits, why should anyone else?
Read the full story -- and what we can do about it --
here.